


Light From Extinguished Constellations

by toastpiercer



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Canon Character of Color, Immigration & Emigration, M/M, Poor Life Choices, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 04:48:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2838518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toastpiercer/pseuds/toastpiercer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The night you crossed the equator, you thought you watched the sky change, the breathtaking, nauseating backwards tilt of the stars.</i> </p><p>In 1986, Gus and Max hitchhike their way from Chile to Mexico to seek their fortunes. It won't end well for them, but they don't know that yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light From Extinguished Constellations

THERE IS A PERIOD WHEN IT IS CLEAR  
THAT YOU HAVE GONE WRONG  
BUT YOU CONTINUE.  
SOMETIMES THERE IS A  
LUXURIOUS AMOUNT OF TIME  
BEFORE SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS.

\- jenny holzer

\--

You took him all the way out to Porvenir, once, just to prove the point. But still he didn’t see it the way you did. 

“This place, huh?" he said, twining his arms around your waist while you glared out at the ocean. Max had been having a grand time, skipping stones and trying to interest the gulls in slices of his apple. "It’s beautiful." 

"It's nothing," you replied. "This whole country is nothing. A skinny little strip of land all the way at the end of the wrong side of the world. Half of that crowded out by mountains. That's where we live. We're not anything of consequence, as long as we're down here. That's not what I want for us, Maximino."

"Mmm." He held you a little tighter and rested his chin on your shoulder. His breath was warm and comforting on your cheek. You could smell his aftershave-- cedar and sandalwood and smoke. "What do you want, then, that you don’t already have here? More money? More power? I know you have a chip on your shoulder that you weren’t born the right kind of filthy rich bastard in the right kind of country, but to those of us here in the gutter, I promise you there’s not much of a difference."

"You’re not in the gutter," you said. “And no, that’s not it, either.” 

Beyond that desolate, gray horizon, you could see _power_ , crude in itself, your self-important pompous idiot father bullying the help, throwing his weight against around like a rhinoceros. An inelegant, unlovely thing on its own. "I want more than just power. I want to command respect. I want to be magnificent." 

\--

In 1986 you heard whispers that the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez was going to try to murder General Pinochet. 

You didn't dispute, in abstract, that this would improve things for many people in Chile. You were not very political, but you'd disliked Pinochet every time you'd met him. He was distasteful to you on a personal level. But, should the government fall, the prospect of angry swarms of people at the gates of your family's home was even more distasteful. Or even, God forbid, at your own home in Santiago, the one you shared with Max. Out for blood like that, who knew how wide such a mob might cast their nets? Agitators setting fire to your garden, crushing Max’s colcopihues with their muddy boots. Better not to take any unnecessary risks. 

You handed him a glass of wine, curled up beside him like a cat, and explained exactly why you had to leave as quickly as possible. He was averse to the idea, but you spun him one of the most elegant arguments you'd ever built in your life. It was a masterwork of persuasion; you knew him well enough to hit all of the right notes of emotion, logic, gentle refutations of his counterarguments. Centimeter by centimeter, you pulled him around to your side. 

He knew what you were doing as soon as you started, of course. He always did. But he loved you, and so he let you do it anyway. He would have let you talk him into anything. 

\--

The night you crossed the equator, you thought you watched the sky change, the breathtaking, nauseating backwards tilt of the stars. 

\--

Somewhere Central American and unbearably humid, you couldn't find a ride from one town to the next. It didn't matter how much money you offered. There just wasn't anything going.

The two of you spent the whole twelve-mile trudge angry and tired and sweaty and having a long, meaningless argument about nothing.

"I don't even understand why you would have let someone do that."

"What's not to understand? He was beautiful. I was lonely."

"Was it after you knew me?"

"I liked his arms."

"So it was after you knew me."

"He played rugby. He was very tall."

"So it was after you knew me." 

"You were half a world away."

"How long after you knew me?" 

"It was the year I couldn't go home for the--"

"Oh, so that's what you were doing all that summer? No wonder you couldn't find the time to write." 

"Max, that's not why... I let him do a line of cocaine off of my stomach! Once! I didn't make love to him. It didn't mean anything."

"But why would you--"

"I was seventeen! I thought it was some kind of poetic justice, revenge against-- I had a very overdeveloped sense of dramatic irony, at the time."

" _At the time_."

"Yes, _at the time_. And it turned out to be only awkward. He sneezed afterwards, right on my face."

"...Really? He sneezed on you?"

"Yes, and it was disgusting, there was mucus... Why are we still having this discussion?" 

"Oh, shit. Hold on, gordi, here comes another truck... Hey! Hey, excuse me, sir, can we catch a ride?"

\--

There in the cold at the end of the world, he’d laughed at you, his breath coming in white clouds, and you could feel the love in it. “Well, I already think you’re magnificent. Your cocadas are, at least.” 

“You’re making fun of me,” you said, scowling, but he just laughed at you again. 

"Maybe I am!" he said. "But only a little bit, I promise. It's good for you."

In spite of yourself, that made you smile. 

\--

"I'm afraid you'll have to share, boys," said the woman renting the room in Buenos Aries, gesturing to the narrow mattress in the tight-packed upper room. She spat a little as she spoke, and you and Max had spent the whole transaction artfully avoiding the splatter. "I hope you don't mind getting close." 

"We'll manage, I'm sure," you said, in a tone like you were trying to hold ice in your mouth unmelted. You kept your breathing deep and slow, and sank down into yourself to blank out your eyes. For his part, Max looked like he was about to fizzle out into laughter. He was too open. It made you nervous. A person could read everything off him. People often had.

"Do you think we’re close enough now?" Max asked, mouth against your neck when the woman left, hands on your hips, pressing gentle kisses from the hollow of your throat up to your jaw, nibbling a little on your earlobe. "Or should we get a little closer?" 

It took some creativity to work it out in such little space, but it made you gasp when he pushed inside of you, and he gave you his left hand to bite down on to muffle the sound when you came. 

"Jesus. Maybe that was a little too close!" he snorted, shaking off the bite. It wasn't particularly funny, not really, but you were saturated with endorphins and nervous adrenaline. You turned your face into his shoulder and almost choked on silent laughter. 

He asked you what you were thinking about, a little later, just before you fell asleep. You don't remember what you answered. It was nothing important. But the question itself aches leaden and unasked in your ribs these days. What you do remember is the scratch of the sheets against your cheek, Max rubbing your arm, his knee digging into your back, as you filled him with all the things that were in your head, and waited for him to fill you with all the things in his. 

\--

Somewhere cold and bright, somewhere up in the Andes, he wrapped himself in blankets and fell asleep on your shoulder. 

\--

"I'm just worried about what's going to happen once we leave Chile," Max said again that first night, the thousandth time. Both of you had been keeping your voices as low as you could, under the clatter and roar of the engine, and the relentless chatter of the plum truck driver. Obviously, he'd agreed to carry you out of want for company more so than money. His shouted stories were all very boring. "I don't know how I'm going to feel. To be honest, Gustavo, I'm nervous. I've never left the country before."

"I know." 

"We might never go back."

"I know." 

"Sorry, how long until we cross the border, again?" Max asked, poking his head into the cab, breaking into the long, winding saga of all the driver's uncle's problems with money and women. "Are we almost there?" 

The man laughed with a wheeze. "Almost? We must have done that maybe two or three hours ago, my friend!" he chirped. "We're well into Argentina!" 

Max's face drained of blood, and you felt his panic like a kick in your own stomach. He started trembling, blinking hard, looking back over his shoulder, as though a glimpse of Chile might still be visible somewhere in the distance.

"I thought for sure I would know," he said, voice low again, and quaking. "I thought for sure I'd be able to tell."

"It's alright," you replied, abandoning discretion and taking his hand, desperate to wipe away the look on his face. “It’s alright.” 

So sure, then, of the truth in your words, you told him, "That was never really home for us, after all."

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from _Love Sonnet XVI_ , by Pablo Neruda.


End file.
